SCAR News

Ten early-career scientists studying ice core science were supported with travel funds for the recent Fall AGU (American Geophysical Union) meeting in San Francisco. The SCAR Physical Sciences Group provided the funds to the Ice Core Young Scientists (ICYS) group following an open call to those first authors presenting either posters or talks at the meeting.

The most recent meeting of the ADMAP (Antarctic Digital Magnetic Anomaly Project) community took place at the Renaissance Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, just before the start of the 2016 SCAR Open Science Conference. With completion of the ADMAP-2 compilation just a step or two away, the meeting was a full and exciting one, with much to arrange for the coming year. The report summarises the discussions and some of the next most important steps to bring ADMAP2 to a successful conclusion. The next planned meeting will be a splinter meeting at EGU 2017.

The SCAR Antarctic Permafrost and Soils (ANTPAS) Expert Group is holding its first international workshop on 4-5 October 2017 at Insubria University, Varese, Italy.

The workshop will mainly focus on the main SCAR Horizon Scan questions and the future hot scientific topics concerning the permafrost environment in Antarctica. For the past 20 years, research has mainly focused on the thermal state of permafrost and the active layer, periglacial processes and landforms and cryosoils. However, recently the community is becoming multidisciplinary, with research more focused on terrestrial ecosystem dynamics under a changing climate. Simultaneously, the links between ecosystem and permafrost scientists became stronger and more collaborative.

This workshop aims at being the starting point for a tentative new SCAR multidisciplinary research programme focusing on a holistic approach to the changing Antarctic permafrost systems. Several SCAR Horizon Scan questions can only be properly addressed within an encompassing new research programme.

For some years, oceanic and polar researchers have been discussing the need for a tool that allows us to share information on field projects, before heading to sea. SOOS (the Southern Ocean Observing System) is coordinating the development of a multi-disciplinary, international field projects database. This database will host details of voyage transects and of the individual project leaders working on board.

The 1st Workshop of the Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS) West Antarctic Peninsula Regional Working Group (WAP WG) will be held at the Aurora Conference Centre, British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK, 15-16 May 2017.

This workshop will focus on the development of the West Antarctic Peninsula Working Group, including building the community, identifying existing activities and observational gaps, aligning data efforts, and articulation of an action plan moving forward. The workshop is sponsored by the British Antarctic Survey, SCAR and SOOS and is open to anyone interested in attending.

A training school focused on exploring glacial seismology will be held from 11-17 June 2017 on the campus of Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA. The programme will include lectures and practical exercises aimed at current and emergent seismological studies of glacial dynamics, structure, seismogenic processes, and seismic observables. While primarily aimed at graduate students and early-career scientists, all interested parties are encouraged to apply regardless of career or experience level. There is no registration fee, and participants will be provided with food and lodging for the duration of the training school. Funding for additional travel expenses, including airfare, may also be available for both US and non-US participants.

Financial support for the training school is provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Antarctica Network (ANET) component of the Polar Earth Observing Network (POLENET) project and by the Scientific Community on Antarctic Research (SCAR) through the Solid Earth Responses and influences on Cryospheric Evolution (SERCE) programme.

The deadline to apply is 31 January 2017. For more information on the school and to apply, visit www.polenet.org and click on the "Training School Information and Applications" link.

The 11th session of the CLIVAR/CliC/SCAR Southern Ocean Region Panel (SORP) was held on 17-18 September 2016 at Hyatt Regency Hotel in Qingdao, China. Download the report here.

The purpose of the group is to serve as a forum for the discussion and communication of scientific advances in the understanding of climate variability and change in the Southern Ocean, and to advise CLIVAR, CliC, and SCAR on progress, achievements, new opportunities and impediments in internationally-coordinated Southern Ocean research.

Three Antarctic-related meetings to be held from 26-30 June 2017: the 12th Workshop on Antarctic Meteorology and Climate, the second planning meeting on YOPP In the Southern Hemisphere, and the Southern Ocean Regional Panel (SORP) Meeting, all kindly hosted by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, USA.

The 12th Workshop on Antarctic Meteorology and Climate brings together those with both research and operational interests in Antarctic meteorology and forecasting and related disciplines. It serves as a forum for current results, ideas, and issues in Antarctic meteorology, numerical weather prediction, forecasting, and climate. The workshop is sponsored by SCAR through the OpMet (Operational Meteorology in the Antarctic) Expert Group. Visit the workshop website for more information.

The Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP) will be officially launched in May 2017. During the core phase of YOPP from mid-2017 to mid-2019, a Special Observing Period in the Southern Hemisphere will take place from mid-November 2018 to mid-February 2019. This will have intensified research activities, including enhanced routine synoptic observations and radiosonde launches.

SCAR’s vision is to create a legacy of Antarctic research as a foundation for a better future. In line with this vision, through scientific research and international cooperation SCAR will establish a thorough understanding of the nature of Antarctica, the role of Antarctica in the global system, and the character and effects of environmental change and human activities on Antarctica. SCAR's work in the next five years will focus on key objectives:

Dr. Jane Francis, Director of the British Antarctic Survey and UK Delegate to SCAR was recently made a dame for her services to polar science and diplomacy. Dame Jane has been involved with Antarctic research since the early 1980s with her paleobiology work and was only the fourth woman to receive the prestigious UK Polar Medal in 2002.

Jane has been an active member of the SCAR community for many years, including her service as the UK Delegate and her mentoring of many young female scientists and help with the Celebrating Women in Antarctica Wikibomb held this past year.

Dr. Francis was included in the 2017 New Year Honours List and THE QUEEN has awarded her the title of Dame Commander of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George.

Please join us in congratulating Jane on her many accomplishments and this great honour.

June 2018

Get to Know SCAR

ADMAP has been providing a unique opportunity for integrating scientific research and investigations over Antarctica. ADMAP aims to enable geologic studies of Antarcitca where almost 99% of the continent is covered by ice and snow.

Considerable attention is paid to the Antarctic is because of the central role of its tectonic and geologic researches in both Gondwana and Rodinia evolution, and the fact that it is the most poorly understood region of the planet. As a consequence, numerous near-surface magnetic surveys carried out by the multi-national scientific communities are critical to unveil the evolutionary history of both paleo-continents. In addition, the state-of-art magnetic satellite missions have been carried out to augment the gaps where near-surface surveys were not done. Accordingly, ADMAP was launched in 1995 to compile and integrate into a digital database all exisiting near-surface and satellite mangetic anomaly data collected in Antarctica and surrounding oceans south of 60 degrees. Since then, the ADMAP Group has been updating the databases with additional surveys as well as investigating the areas of special interest, first as a SCAR Working Group and currently as an Expert Group.

BEPSII serves as a unique forum linking modellers and field scientists studying sea-ice biogeochemistry. As a SCOR working group, BEPSII has been organized around three task groups, focused on:

improving observation methods;

building large-scale databases; and

upscaling processes within models.

The working group's lifetime in SCOR ended but the community sought to continue and expand the group's goals and membership. With an increasing awareness of the important role of sea-ice biogeochemistry in climate-relevant elemental cycles, approval has been granted for BEPSII to continue as a SCAR Action Group within Life Sciences.

The aim of BEPSII is to support and further develop an international community on sea-ice biogeochemistry; to stimulate the interaction between experimentalists and modelers working on this topic and to help the community articulate research priorities and identify optimized and cost-effective approaches and research platforms in internationally resource-limited times.

Permafrost in the Antarctic is widespread in the ice-free areas and a key variable for ecosystems, hydrology and geomorphological dynamics. It was only in the last decade that it was possible to have a more accurate overview of the thermal state of permafrost and active layer dynamics in the Antarctic. This followed the installation of new GTN-P boreholes and active layer monitoring sites (CALM) within IPY projects ANTPAS and TSP. However, there is still a lot to be understood about Antarctic permafrost and active layer and mainly on their relationships to other environmental variables. Even in cold permafrost areas, extreme warm events can induce significant modifications in the active layer dynamics as has been shown in the McMurdo Dry Valleys. Other areas of the Antarctic show warm permafrost and several sites suggest that it is thawing fast due following climate change, such as the South Shetlands and Northwest Antarctic Peninsula region. An interdisciplinary approach is needed to fully unravel consequences of this changes in the highly sensitive Antarctic environments.

The Antarctic Permafrost, Soils and Periglacial Environment (ANTPAS) Expert Group aims at promoting international collaboration towards the development and consolidation of Antarctic permafrost research. Such is done through annual organization of workshops and conference sessions, dissemination of an annual newsletter on member activities and promotion of discussion of needs for Antarctic permafrost research. As such and following the IPY approach, ANTPAS promotes the main science guidelines for international cooperation on hot topics in permafrost science in key areas of the Antarctic.

ANTPAS links with other SCAR bodies on advisory issues related to permafrost, as well as with other associations, such as the International Permafrost Association.

The Solid Earth Response and influence on Cryospheric Evolution (SERCE) scientific research programme aims to advance understanding of the interactions between the solid earth and the cryosphere to better constrain ice mass balance, ice dynamics and sea level change in a warming world. This objective will be accomplished through integrated analysis and incorporation of geological, geodetic and geophysical measurements into models of glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) and ice sheet dynamics.

The programme is designed to synthesize and integrate the extensive new geological and geophysical data sets obtained during and subsequent to the International Polar Year with modeling studies, in a timeframe to contribute to IPCC AR6. SERCE will provide the international collaborative framework and scientific leadership to investigate systems-scale solid earth – ice sheet interactions across Antarctica and relate these results to global earth system and geodynamic processes.

A series of expert workshops will produce synthetic science products based on extensive new geophysical data sets for Antarctica as well as improved data-modeling integration. Thematic science symposia and workshops, and ensuing published thematic journal issues, will propel the science of solid earth – cryosphere interactions beyond the current state of knowledge and contribute a body of new knowledge to the IPCC AR6 assessment.

The SERCE programme will conduct major efforts in capacity building, training and public outreach using complementary strategies to achieve technical capacity via information exchange, analytical capacity via training schools, engagement of new polar researchers via thematic science sessions, and public outreach via the world wide web.

For more information about the goals and objectives of SERCE, take a look at the implementation plan.

SCAR Featured Member Country

As part of our drive to promote SCAR’s national committees and feature the efforts of our members’ research communities, we are delighted to highlight the work of our colleagues from India. The Indian Antarctic Programme is the responsibility of the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR), an autonomous organisation of the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India. The national committee recently submitted its National Annual Report for 2016, including research highlights from the 2015-16 season.

India’s first expedition to Antarctica was in 1981. Two years later, India signed the Antarctic Treaty, and constructed its first research base, Dakshin Gangotri, during the 1983-84 season. It joined the SCAR family on 1 October 1984.

Research Features

The Antarctic research cruise JR 16003 is the Western Core Box cruise of the 2016-17 voyage of the RRS James Clark Ross to the Antarctic, around South Georgia, with extra stations at the Antarctic Polar Front region.

Since 1981, the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have undertaken cruises to determine Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) biomass as part of the ongoing assessment of the status of the marine ecosystem in the region of South Georgia. It comprises an acoustic grid survey of 8 transects each of 80 km in length, together with associated net and oceanographic sampling and the calibration of acoustic instrumentation. In addition to the acoustic survey, which covers a wide area but has limited temporal coverage, there are three moorings (one on the shelf in the Western Core Box, and two in deep water to the southwest and northwest of South Georgia) to provide a temporal, year-round set of observations. The mooring instruments record parameters such as temperature, salinity and current velocities, as well as sediment traps that enable us to monitor the annual flux of carbon to deep waters. These moorings are recovered during the cruise, refurbished and data downloaded, and then redeployed later in the cruise. The shallow Western Core Box mooring has been in position more or less continuously since 2003.

The Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia leads an international project funded by the Italian National Program for Antarctic Research, called Demonstrator of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Research and Application for Polar Environment (DemoGRAPE), in partnership with Politecnico di Torino, Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, and with South African National Space Agency and the Brazilian National Institute of Space Physics, as key collaborators. DemoGRAPE is a new prototype of support for the satellite navigation in Antarctica. Besides the scientific interest, the accuracy of satellite navigation in Antarctica is of paramount importance since there is always the danger that people and vehicles can fall into a crevasse during a snowstorm, when visibility is limited and travel is restricted to following specified routes using satellite navigation systems.

The Antarctic and Southern Ocean are hotspots for contemporary endeavours to oversee 'the last frontier' of the Earth. The Handbook on the Politics of Antarctica offers a wide-ranging and comprehensive overview of the governance, geopolitics, international law, cultural studies and history of the region. Four thematic sections take readers from the earliest human encounters to contemporary resource exploitation and climate change. Written by leading experts, the Handbook brings together the very best interdisciplinary social science and humanities scholarship on the Antarctic and Southern Ocean.

For more information and to purchase a copy, please visit the publisher's website. SCAR readers are entitled to a 35% discount - just go to the Handbook page, add the book to your basket, click on the basket and use code SCAR35 in the discount box.

Rick Aster and colleagues at Colorado State University have just published results from an examination of 20 years of microseism observations from the Antarctic Peninsula that help to improve our understanding of factors that potentially drive the collapse of ice shelves.

Educational Resources

Contributed by: Gary Wesche, Polar Educators International, PEI and member of the Cresis expedition team to Byrd Surface Camp, Antarctica, 2009 as a PolarTREC teacher.

As scientists in any number of fields of research in Antarctica it is likely you have been asked to speak to a variety of audiences about your work and often about Antarctica itself. For many groups their knowledge of this icy continent is limited.

Depending on where they are located they may have limited knowledge of ice and snow and the dynamics of glaciers.

Whether you have 15 minutes or 45 minutes the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets, (CRESIS), has developed a number of activities on Glacier Dynamics in there extensive curriculum, Ice Ice Baby! These hands-on activities utilize easy to obtain items to allow your audience to participate in their own understanding of glaciology.

If you are fortunate to have an ongoing relationship with an audience or group of students the 9 activities in Glacier Dynamics get progressively more advanced giving you a chance to increase your audiences understanding.

Especially helpful are the lesson plans, which can be left with a classroom teacher for their continued use with their students. They contain a basic background, directions, discussion questions, a materials list, vocabulary list, evaluation tools and links to related activities within the Ice Ice Baby! curriculum.

Explore a wide range of objects from Antarctica in the new short films from the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI). Designed for use in a classroom with primary age (7-11 year olds) students, though also accessible to older children, each film follows a theme: food, transport, navigation, science or clothing. As well as featuring beautiful photography and detailed shots of objects from the SPRI collection, each film is introduced by experts on the theme and an expert from the Polar Museum at SPRI.

As well as the films themselves, you can download accompanying teacher packs, brimming with brilliant ideas and resources to get your students thinking in new ways across a range of subjects areas, and high resolution images of the objects for use in the classroom.

Partner News and Updates

NSF Advanced Training Program in Antarctica for Early Career Scientists: Biological Adaptations to Environmental Change

This US National Science Foundation sponsored Antarctic Biology Course will be held during January 2018 in Antarctica, at the United States Antarctic Program’s McMurdo Station. The training program is designed to provide early-career scientists with opportunities to work in Antarctica and to study polar biology. Applications are invited from graduate students currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program and researchers who have completed a Ph.D. within the past five years. This is an international training program, open to all nationalities. Partial support is available to cover the cost of travel from each participant’s home institution. While in Antarctica, full support is provided for room & board and science activities. The emphasis of the Antarctic Biology Course is on integrative biology, with laboratory- and field-based projects focused on adaptations to extreme polar environments. This program will also provide opportunities to understand and appreciate the complexities and logistical challenges of undertaking successful science in Antarctica. A diverse instructional faculty will offer participants the opportunity to study a wide range of Antarctic organisms (bacteria, algae, invertebrates, fish), using different levels of biological analysis (spanning molecular biology, physiological ecology, species diversity, and evolution).

The Polar Prediction Workshop 2017 will start on 27 March with the public Alfred Wegener Lecture where, every other year, a distinguished climate scientist is invited to report on emerging fields of research for scientific exchange. This time, the lecture entitled “A Decade of Sea Ice Prediction“ will be given by Cecilia Bitz (Atmospheric Science Department, University of Washington) who is going to review rapid advances in predicting skills of Arctic sea ice conditions since The Sea Ice Outlook began collecting and reporting predictions in 2008.

The focus of the subsequent Polar Prediction Workshop is on environmental prediction in the polar regions on subseasonal to interannual timescales, thereby helping to build a "seamless“ polar prediction community. As in previous years, sea ice prediction will play a central role. Desired outcomes include the compilation of recommendations for the 2017 Sea Ice Outlook season, as well as the stimulation of collaborations in the context of the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP; mid-2017—mid-2019).

The SIMIP workshop, which follows PPW from midday on 29 March, is devoted to discussions about the sea ice simulations from the upcoming CMIP6 experiments (SIMIP), with three distinct aims:

It’s not every day you get the opportunity to explore Antarctica, but Victoria University of Wellington’s first massive open online course (MOOC) will allow anyone, anywhere, to do just that—and for free.

Enrolments are now open for Antarctica: From Geology to Human History on the global edX platform—a nonprofit, open-source technology platform founded by prestigious United States universities Harvard and MIT and governed by universities for universities.

With support from Antarctica New Zealand, Dr Cliff Atkins and Dr Rebecca Priestley filmed lectures on location on Ross Island and in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica.

Together, they explore more than 500 million years of geological history and 250 years of geographical discovery and scientific endeavour on the coldest, driest, windiest continent on Earth.

“It’s not easy to take students to Antarctica, but by filming the lectures on the ice, we can introduce students around the world to this incredible continent,” says Dr Priestley.

Dr Atkins is an Antarctic veteran, having spent 12 seasons on the ice. He introduces students to some of the planet’s most remarkable landscapes—the Dry Valleys, the Transantarctic Mountains and the world’s southernmost volcanic island.

Dr Priestley, a science historian and writer who has written extensively about Antarctica, visits Captain Scott’s huts on Ross Island and interviews conservators from the Antarctic Heritage Trust and scientists and logistics staff working at Scott Base and McMurdo Station.

The Korean Polar Institute is pleased to announce the 23rd International Symposium on Polar Sciences in Incheon, the Republic of Korea on May 17-18, 2017. The International Symposium on Polar Sciences has been held once every year since the launch of our Antarctic research. This Symposium serves not only to bring polar scientists together, providing an international forum to exchange views and ideas, but also provides an opportunity to discuss collaborative research with colleagues. Symposium Theme: Antarctic Horizon Scan identified, 'learning how Antarctic life evolve and survived' as one of the six most important research questions for the next 20 years and beyond. Polar genomics is also one of the research initiatives KOPRI recently selected to pursue. In this regard, the theme of the 23rd International Symposium on Polar Science is timely set; "Life at the Extremes: Resilience, Adaptation and Application Potential." We cordially invite you to share your knowledge and understanding towards living organisms in the polar region.